


Exiled Princess

by AitanaTheFangirl



Category: The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time
Genre: Filling plotholes, Gen, One Shot, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-21
Updated: 2016-11-21
Packaged: 2018-09-01 09:48:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8619670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AitanaTheFangirl/pseuds/AitanaTheFangirl
Summary: When Ganon makes his move on Hyrule Castle, Zelda and Impa make their escape, the future looking bleak.





	

**Author's Note:**

> YAY SOMETHING NEW I haven't posted anything in awhile. Hoping you guys like this! :D

    The sun’s rosy glow spread upward from the horizon as the white horse Princess Zelda and her caretaker, Impa, were riding took off across the Hyrulian countryside. 

    Zelda knew that Ganondorf had taken Hyrule: he had made his move, killing Zelda’s father right in front of her, leaving the 10 year old girl numb with shock. Zelda had tried to run, but as she turned, Ganondorf bound her legs together with an unseen force as she fell to the floor, unable to stand. 

    She braced herself, too frozen with fear to cry. Soon, Impa stood between the princess and her assailant, freezing Ganondorf in his tracks.  _ “Zelda! Go, now!” _

    Surprised to find herself able to stand, she stood as fast as she could in her long dress and took off, Impa following suit. 

    As hastily as she could dare, she left a note for Link at the Temple of Time: she didn’t have time to meet him.

_ I’m so sorry I couldn’t meet you, Link… _ Zelda would have said, had she have been able to talk to him.  _ I’m so sorry…  _

    She threw him the Ocarina of Time. It was their last chance. Ganondorf couldn’t be able to take the Triforce. It was a difficult shot: The horse moving so fast as it bounced under her. She watched as he vanished in the distance, hoping,  _ praying _ that she had left him enough to open the Door of Time. 

    If Impa knew that Zelda had thrown the Ocarina, she didn’t say anything. 

    “Impa…?” Zelda asked, her voice trembling. “Where will we go now?” They were in exile now. Ganondorf would stop at nothing to find her and Impa. 

    “Not here,” Impa replied. “Ganondorf has ears everywhere.”

_ Ears? _ But she said nothing.

    They rode in silence for hours. Zelda, numb, didn’t realize she had been crying until the morning sun filled her tears with sparkling light. Her father… and Link… Everything was falling apart. All she could do was hope everything would work out. 

    The sun was peeking over the horizon when the horse finally stopped, Zelda lurching forward slightly, the horse’s sides heaving.

    Despite the gravity of the situation, Impa, as cool and serene as ever, calmly got off the horse’s back. “It’s been ages since I’ve been here…” she muttered, a nostalgic overtone in her voice. She gazed around the area, Zelda looking, too. There was a sheer cliff face nearby, reaching up to a dizzying height. Zelda was suddenly aware that she wasn’t sitting sidesaddle, her skirt up to her knees in a very un-princess like manner. She changed her position to something more proper, saddle sore.

    “Don’t worry about it, Zelda,” Impa said. “We’re here.”

    Zelda clumsily got off the horse, stumbling a few feet with her sore legs. “Where?”

    “Shh! You’ll find out.”

    Impa put a hand to her mouth, whistling a tune Zelda knew well: a lullaby from when she was very small. 

    A red symbol appeared on the wall: a simple line drawing of an eye with a single tear falling from it, like a cryptic rune of some sort. A hole in the stone big enough for a person to comfortably walk through soundlessly opened. Impa glanced behind them, making sure they weren’t followed. She quickly led the horse and the princess through it. The door behind them closed, plunging the room into darkness. 

    A sudden, bright flash of light came from nowhere, blinding Zelda. The horse whinnied nervously, and Impa calmed it as Zelda tried to blink the spots from her eyes.

    When she could see again, Zelda noticed she and Impa were somewhere new: a graveyard. Not just  _ a _ graveyard, but  _ the Graveyard _ , where Zelda had been for her mother’s funeral several years ago. The stone wall soundlessly closed behind them, the red eye symbol disappearing. 

    “Say nothing, Zelda,” Impa said.

    Impa took the princess by the hand, the other on the horse’s reins, leading it to a tiny hut off the graveyard edge, barely more than a lean-to. Impa knocked on its door.

    An older man whose hairline had receded so far that there wasn’t one answered the door. “Can I help you?”

    “Dampé, answer me this,” Impa began. “How can you see what can’t be seen?”

    Dampé’s eyebrows went up. “Come in, and I’ll tell you,” he said, promptly taking the expensive saddle off the white horse, putting it in a section of wall he pulled away. 

    Impa was welcomed into the tiny house. Zelda, remembering to hold her tongue, asked no questions, but followed quietly.

    “Dampé,” Impa said to the old man. “Would you have some simple clothes that would fit her?”

    Dampé studied Zelda, gauging her height. “I might.” 

    He went to the back, finding a dark blue tunic for Zelda, Impa helping her dress.

    “Zelda…” impa whispered in her ear. “We have to hide out here. Tell nobody your name. Not even those we’ll meet soon. Only say that you are a boy I rescued from Castle Town.” 

    She pulled aside thick segments of Zelda’s long hair, cutting them short with a pair of scissors as the girl flinched, watching as long golden strands fell to the floor.

    When Impa was finished, Zelda‘s hair had been cut haphazardly, boyishly short with long bangs covering the left side of her face.

    Impa studied her handiwork, lowering a round hat on Zelda’s newly cropped hair. “It’ll have to do,” she muttered. She led Zelda to a trapdoor that Dampé had opened up for them. “Thank you, Dampé,” she said.

    “Welcome back, Lady Impa,” Dampé said with a nod. 

 

    Zelda didn’t know what she had expected when she descended the rope ladder under Dampé’s house. 

    What she saw was almost a whole colony, underground people with lamps and torches and small sections of floors for everyone. The surprisingly clean stone walls were decorated with the red eye design.

    There was so many of them: men and women, children even younger than Zelda. Many glanced in Zelda and Impa’s direction when they descended. Murmurs rippled through the cave.

_ “Lady Impa has returned.” _

_     “It’s been so long… I can’t believe it!” _

__ A few whispered about Zelda:  _ “Who is the boy?” _

    She said nothing.

    One came forward, a man about 25, he and Impa exchanging a respectful nod. “It’s great to see you back, Impa.”

    “It’s great to be back,” Impa replied. “Do we have a status report?”

    “Ganondorf’s taken the Sacred Realm,” the man replied. “He has the Triforce. Our spies report that the boy attempting to save Hyrule has mysteriously disappeared. He didn’t stop Ganondorf… Yet.”

_ Link… no…  _

    “What happened to him?” Impa asked in reply, her brow furrowed in question.

    “We don’t know. We scouted around the Temple of Time, where he was seen last, and he wasn’t anywhere to be seen. Neither was the Master Sword. Ganondorf doesn’t have it, either.

    “Judging by Ganondorf’s rage, the Triforce split into 3 parts, like our legends say. We don’t know where the other pieces are.”

    “Alright, then…” Impa said. “Let’s hope Ganondorf doesn’t know either.”

    The newcomer’s eyes drifted to Zelda. “Who’s this?” 

    “A boy I found in Castle Town,” Impa said. “He was almost hit by Ganon’s passing horse. His parents went to defend him, and Ganondorf killed them for making his horse stop, vaporizing them on the spot.”

    The man got to Zelda’s eye level. “A new recruit?”

    Impa nodded. “That’s what I was thinking.”

    He held a hand to Zelda. “Welcome to the Sheikah tribe, young one,” he said. Zelda shook his hand. “We are a secretive people. Do you promise that everything and everyone you see here will not,  _ under any circumstances _ be shared with anyone outside the tribe?”

    She glanced at Impa.  _ Can I talk now? _ Impa nodded.

    She nodded. “I do.”


End file.
